Looking for moddable ship system

[aspekt]

I am looking for a miniatures game with a rules system that caters to ship to ship combat, but in particular empasizes ship modding.

Please ask for any clarifications needed. I do have trouble at times with clear communication.

[Cheesegear]

Unless you mean you want to 'mod' the miniature itself, rather than its stat-block?
Unless you mean 'ships' as in 'boats'?

X-Wing has you covered. If it doesn't, then wait a bit for Star Wars: Armada. Which is exactly what it sounds like - armadas of ships. Instead of the skirmish game that X-Wing is. That said, you can play X-Wing with loads of points and take it from a skirmish game to...Well, a bigger skirmish game, I guess.

[Brother Oni]

If you mean wet ships, possibly Man O' War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_O'_War_(game)), if you can find a copy of it.

For space ships, Battlefleet Gothic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefleet_Gothic) perhaps?

[aspekt]

Thanks! Those both sound interesting. I'll probably wait on Armada and troll ebay for Man'o'War.

To clarify I was looking for a system that allowed you to mod the stats for a ship. I have had Leviathans for a while, which is a fun game. But I haven't seen Catalyst do much with it since shortly after launch.

If I can I'd like to find a comprehensive meta system that I could also import to Leviathans for ship modding there as well. And this gives me a place to start looking, much appreciated.

[Knaight]

Wargame Vault and Freewargames.com are both worth looking at here. I know I've seen several free games that have ship modification in both of these, for both sailing and space ships.

[aspekt]

Wargame Vault and Freewargames.com are both worth looking at here. I know I've seen several free games that have ship modification in both of these, for both sailing and space ships.

Thanks! I'll google those up.

[Aotrs Commander]

As an immediate one, Full Thrust (as available as a free PDF download on the Ground Zero Games website (http://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=130), since it went out of print) is about the current best out there. At time of publishing, it won awards for best sci-fi game several years running. It is entirely built around making your own starships. (The fleet books, by the by, you want as well, since they essentially turn it into a 2.5th edition of itself, and less because they give some "official" stats for GZG's lines of models (the fact they were the thid and forth expansion should tell you something). By his own admission, Jon Tuffley wrote FT specifically so as to NOT have an "official" background or fleets and the one included is purely optional.)

At value for money it is, well, free, so it's worth looking at even if you decide its no your cup of tea, because it will cost no more than time. It is ideal if you just want to make some starships and as, Ft itself says "get a six pack and boldly go" (though this is a bit self-deprecating.)



I am personally twelve years of work into writing what I consider a spiritual successor to FT, which fixes the few flaws I felt Full Thrust has. I'd suggest that myself, but I FINALLY got some feedback and realised I have written such a well-nested system that I need to basically write a strategy guide. (Basically of the complexities that result from the emergant system of simple rules. One might think of it akin to something more like chess, wherein learning the rules and learning to play are not quite the same thing. This is good, though, as that is exactly what I was going for.)

If you (or anyone) are interested, I can go into more significant detail, but basically, it is designed to be an open system that will broadly model pretty much anything you see in popular sci-fi, and plays without roughly twenty or so ships aside in an evening's gaming. I have (so far) created 41 different starfleets (yes, I really do have that many starships - my current personal total stands just shy of 1300, and between us we have about 1700 and with 2300 fighters and small craft), all of which play slightly differently, thanks to the tech tree system.

(If you are either really brave or insane, I am quite prepared to let people have a look over it in its current state. The rules are, barring the odd tweak to the more obscure systems, complete, it's just the strategy part that needs explanation. Since you sort of have to have some idea of how the fleets actually work to make the tech tree, as I recently realised. And why this has been stalled out for a while, since I needed the imput from someone cold to find me the idiot-proofing errors (one of the most critical being me realising I don't make tech trees for the races like I thought I made tech trees.) So I basically have to properly write up WHY you choose this system at this tech level and the affects on strategy thereof. Accelerate & Attack is a game for sad people like me who want to invest a bit more time and hard tactical decision-making-puzzles in their wargames (i.e. not "what's the best weapons load-out I can have.")

[aspekt]

As an immediate one, Full Thrust (as available as a free PDF download on the Ground Zero Games website (http://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=130), since it went out of print) is about the current best out there. At time of publishing, it won awards for best sci-fi game several years running. It is entirely built around making your own starships. (The fleet books, by the by, you want as well, since they essentially turn it into a 2.5th edition of itself, and less because they give some "official" stats for GZG's lines of models (the fact they were the thid and forth expansion should tell you something). By his own admission, Jon Tuffley wrote FT specifically so as to NOT have an "official" background or fleets and the one included is purely optional.)

At value for money it is, well, free, so it's worth looking at even if you decide its no your cup of tea, because it will cost no more than time. It is ideal if you just want to make some starships and as, Ft itself says "get a six pack and boldly go" (though this is a bit self-deprecating.)



I am personally twelve years of work into writing what I consider a spiritual successor to FT, which fixes the few flaws I felt Full Thrust has. I'd suggest that myself, but I FINALLY got some feedback and realised I have written such a well-nested system that I need to basically write a strategy guide. (Basically of the complexities that result from the emergant system of simple rules. One might think of it akin to something more like chess, wherein learning the rules and learning to play are not quite the same thing. This is good, though, as that is exactly what I was going for.)

If you (or anyone) are interested, I can go into more significant detail, but basically, it is designed to be an open system that will broadly model pretty much anything you see in popular sci-fi, and plays without roughly twenty or so ships aside in an evening's gaming. I have (so far) created 41 different starfleets (yes, I really do have that many starships - my current personal total stands just shy of 1300, and between us we have about 1700 and with 2300 fighters and small craft), all of which play slightly differently, thanks to the tech tree system.

(If you are either really brave or insane, I am quite prepared to let people have a look over it in its current state. The rules are, barring the odd tweak to the more obscure systems, complete, it's just the strategy part that needs explanation. Since you sort of have to have some idea of how the fleets actually work to make the tech tree, as I recently realised. And why this has been stalled out for a while, since I needed the imput from someone cold to find me the idiot-proofing errors (one of the most critical being me realising I don't make tech trees for the races like I thought I made tech trees.) So I basically have to properly write up WHY you choose this system at this tech level and the affects on strategy thereof. Accelerate & Attack is a game for sad people like me who want to invest a bit more time and hard tactical decision-making-puzzles in their wargames (i.e. not "what's the best weapons load-out I can have.")

I am actually brand new to this, though I have been reading a few things. The only game I currently play is Leviathans, but it's been in Catalyst Games' backburner mode for almost 2 years now I think. Suffice to say it's not overly complex.

I will check out Full Thrust. My brother eats complexity like it's cereal. And since he is severely dyslexic I read and he interprets.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am actually brand new to this, though I have been reading a few things. The only game I currently play is Leviathans, but it's been in Catalyst Games' backburner mode for almost 2 years now I think. Suffice to say it's not overly complex.

I will check out Full Thrust. My brother eats complexity like it's cereal. And since he is severely dyslexic I read and he interprets.

Full Thrust is absolutely your best starting point then. It's an easy system to learn, especially if you're new to this sort of game. (I started starship wargames on Full Thrust at about 13/14-ish.)

[aspekt]

Full Thrust is absolutely your best starting point then. It's an easy system to learn, especially if you're new to this sort of game. (I started starship wargames on Full Thrust at about 13/14-ish.)

Well I went to the site indicated, but the only option to select under rules available was "Dummy". So ya...

[Aotrs Commander]

Well I went to the site indicated, but the only option to select under rules available was "Dummy". So ya...

Are you looking at the right bit? The rules are hypelinked .pdfs, a list of orange text above the section marked "dummy" and directly below where it says "Download the rules here." (I imagine the "dummy" section is just an artifice of the website for whatever reason.)

Okay then, try these links, which I have grabbed directly from the page.

Full Thrust (http://downloads.groundzerogames.co.uk/FullThrust.pdf)

Fleet Book 1 (http://downloads.groundzerogames.co.uk/FB1Full.pdf)

Fleet Book 2 (http://downloads.groundzerogames.co.uk/FB2Full.pdf)

(For good measure, here's a pdf of More Thrust (http://www.fts.cba.pl/Main/download/full_thrust_bonus_book.pdf), which Jon doesn't appear to have on the page for some reason.)


If you're still having problems, the next step would be to PM me an email address and I'll download 'em myself and pass 'em on.

[aspekt]

Thanks for the help. Those downloaded fine. My only net access is via my phone since I live just far enough out. And that may have been the source of the trouble.

[Aotrs Commander]

Jolly good!

If you have any questions or whatnot, you can always give me a yell.

[Tyndmyr]

Good news, everyone! Armada's out now. So, that's an option.

Seriously, x-wing is pretty cool too, and it's at that popularity level where you can find games for it, which is important in practice for mini games. Armada will probably also hit that, because, well, star wars, but you've got the different scale, so it's really a scale question.

[rs2excelsior]

(If you are either really brave or insane, I am quite prepared to let people have a look over it in its current state. The rules are, barring the odd tweak to the more obscure systems, complete, it's just the strategy part that needs explanation. Since you sort of have to have some idea of how the fleets actually work to make the tech tree, as I recently realised. And why this has been stalled out for a while, since I needed the imput from someone cold to find me the idiot-proofing errors (one of the most critical being me realising I don't make tech trees for the races like I thought I made tech trees.) So I basically have to properly write up WHY you choose this system at this tech level and the affects on strategy thereof. Accelerate & Attack is a game for sad people like me who want to invest a bit more time and hard tactical decision-making-puzzles in their wargames (i.e. not "what's the best weapons load-out I can have.")

I actually would be interested in checking that out. I'm always interested to find a good set of space combat rules, and most of them are kind of meh.

And to address the OP's post, I second the recommendations for Full Thrust. It's a good, simple system with ship design rules, which seems to be what you're looking for.

[Aotrs Commander]

I actually would be interested in checking that out. I'm always interested to find a good set of space combat rules, and most of them are kind of meh.

If you want to PM me an email address, I can send you the appropriate gubbins.

(Which, at the moment is basically three, possibly four, components: the main rules, the "starter set," (which was supposed to be cut-down version with two "sample" fleets and a couple of scenarios so you could play "out of the box/or at least printer" but in the light of recent stuff mainly serves as a repository for the image-heavy markers and whatnot that I don't keep in the main rules (because I print those semi-regularly) as it is now a little bit outdated) and the "idiot's guide" in the only-partly-constructed state as it stands; and if you have MS Excel, I have a slightly crude (i.e. requires a bit of copy-pasting around) but entirely functional spreadsheet for fleet profile generation.))